美国国家公共电台 NPR Is The Record Number Of Women Candidates A 2018 Blip — Or A Lasting Trend?

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

A record number of women are running for Congress this year. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben asked if this marks a lasting¹ shift.

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE²: Lauren Underwood, the Democratic House candidate in Illinois' 14th district, is relaxing with a drink after an afternoon of greeting constituents³ at a picnic in Geneva, Ill.

LAUREN UNDERWOOD: I just want the people of America to know that this is 100 percent juice Capri Sun.

KURTZLEBEN: The 31-year-old nurse, who also worked in the Obama Health and Human Services Department, says she hadn't really considered running for office. But then she heard that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was digging into the numbers to see where they might be able to compete in 2018.

UNDERWOOD: I was like, what? I want to know about the data on Democrats⁴ in Naperville, so I reached out, and they brought me in for a meeting and walked me through that information. And at the end of that conversation, they were like, we're looking for someone to run the 14th. Is there any chance you'd be remotely interested? That opened the door for me.

KURTZLEBEN: And that makes her a lot like many other women candidates, says Deborah Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

DEBORAH WALSH: Women don't think about running for office as often as men do without getting recruited, without having someone else suggest it.

KURTZLEBEN: But then women are interested in running this year - far more than any year in history - and they've been winning. The number of women nominees⁵ for House, Senate, governorships and state legislatures have all soared past previous records this year. Political scientists like Walsh are wondering - could the conventional wisdom be changing?

WALSH: We don't know if this is a one-off or if this may be the beginning of a new norm. But it's fascinating to watch women who are not necessarily waiting to be asked - right? - not waiting to be asked to the dance. They're just stepping up and engaging as candidates.

KURTZLEBEN: Elizabeth Heng, a Republican running in California's 16th district, decided⁶ to jump in just earlier this year.

ELIZABETH HENG: It was all me. On January 20, when our government shut down again, something about that day just lit a fire under me, right.

KURTZLEBEN: Political scientists are at the very start of understanding how much this year changed things. In May 2017, Loyola Marymount University's Richard Fox and fellow political scientist Jennifer Lawless put together a survey of more than 2,000 college-educated working adults, people they considered potential candidates for office.

RICHARD FOX: I would say the general conventional wisdom is probably still true. Women are still less likely to think of running, you know, simply and easily - oh, that's something I might like to do some day, have it in their consciousness.

KURTZLEBEN: However, he sees at least one potential sign of change. Among that relatively⁷ small group of people who said they had considered running, Democratic women were much more likely than other groups to say they first started thinking about running after Donald Trump⁸ got elected. And indeed, Democrats account for roughly 3 in 4 women House candidates this year.

FOX: There is a group of women who are very activated⁹ by Trump's election, and, you know, so then the conventional wisdom wouldn't apply to them.

KURTZLEBEN: The question is whether this year's bump will hold. One place to look for comparison is 1992, the so-called year of the woman after which the number of women in Congress climbed by two-thirds.

WALSH: Unfortunately, in 1992, we didn't see lasting change.

KURTZLEBEN: Deborah Walsh says that while the numbers of women elected to federal and state office climbed sharply that year, those numbers slowed or even stagnated¹⁰ in the following years. She's hopeful that this year will be different.

WALSH: The momentum¹¹ and the energy feels like it has the potential to last, you know, to have some legs.

KURTZLEBEN: One thing Walsh cautions against is overstating how big this year's wave is. For one thing, many of the women who are running are challenging incumbents¹². Plus, men came out in droves, too.

WALSH: Women made up, you know, less than a quarter of the congressional candidates this cycle who filed. Women are still underrepresented as candidates.

KURTZLEBEN: If women House candidates win all of the races they're favored to win, plus all of their toss-up races, the number of women in the U.S. House will go up from 1 in 5 to nearly 1 in 4. But women make up more than half of Americans, which is to say there's plenty of room to grow in the future.

Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News, Washington.

1 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 constituents   

n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素

参考例句：

• She has the full support of her constituents. 她得到本区选民的全力支持。
• Hydrogen and oxygen are the constituents of water. 氢和氧是水的主要成分。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 nominees   

n.被提名者，被任命者( nominee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She's one of the nominees. 她是被提名者之一。 来自超越目标英语 第2册
• A startling number of his nominees for senior positions have imploded. 他所提名的高级官员被否决的数目令人震惊。 来自互联网

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

8 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

9 activated   

adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。

10 stagnated   

v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The balloting had stagnated, he couldn't win. 投票工作陷于停顿，他不能得胜。 来自辞典例句
• His mind has stagnated since his retirement. 他退休后头脑迟钝了。 来自辞典例句

11 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

12 incumbents   

教区牧师( incumbent的名词复数 )； 教会中的任职者

参考例句：

• In general, incumbents have a 94 percent chance of being reelected. 通常现任官员有94%的几率会再次当选。
• This arangement yields a wonderful gain to incumbents. 这种安排为在职人员提供了意外的得益。